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- Legal team wants Jeremy Lin-named medical marijuana stopped March 29, 2012
- Feds’ crackdown is a bummer for Oakland marijuana university March 29, 2012
- Blacks, Bias and Marijuana: Did Drug Stigma Contribute to Trayvon Martin’s Death? March 29, 2012
- SF District Attorney George Gascón says he supports medical marijuana March 29, 2012
- Marijuana reform heats up in Washington state March 8, 2012
- Pat Robertson: Marijuana should be legalized, regulated like alcohol; war on drugs has failed March 8, 2012
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Court Says L.A. Pot Store Closures Can Continue
Source: www.kcet.org
Date Of Publication: May 28, 2010
L.A. Pot Store Closures Can Continue, Court Says
An attempt to squash the current crackdown on post-moratorium pot storefronts in L.A. via the courts has failed, but many more lawsuits and court hearings lie ahead.
Jane Usher, senior adviser to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the former head of the L.A. planning commission, told the Weekly that two additional pot-shop lawsuits against the city, on top of four existing ones, were rumored to be in the works. Still, Usher expressed confidence that the city would remain in a winning position in court. “There is at the moment to no judicial order restraining the city’s enforcement come June 7,” she said.
It matters very much in American justice the luck of what judge ends up hearing your case:
On Wednesday a judge indicated he might just give the plaintiffs their injunction. But when he said he was unable to preside over a subsequent hearing for a permanent injunction, the suit was transferred to Judge David P. Yaffee, who shut the door on the foursome of dispensaries. Attorneys for the shops had argued that the city’s new law denied them due legal process — there’s virtually no pathway for legality under the new ordinance — and equal protection under the law (because they weren’t part of a 2007 group of shops grandfathered in by the city for possible legality).
The L.A. Times report has more specifics on other lawsuits the city faces challenging its crackdown:
The city also faces nine lawsuits filed this week by attorney Stewart Richlin, who intends to seek court orders to halt enforcement of the ordinance. “I think that an intelligent judge looking at the facts objectively will agree that the city is applying a different standard to this process because of reefer madness,” he said. Eric Shevin, another attorney, plans to file a lawsuit soon on behalf of medical marijuana patients and also pursue an order that would bar the city from enforcing the ordinance.
I wrote a cover story for the May issue of Reason magazine detailing the tangled history of Los Angeles’s attempts to regulate medical marijuana storefronts. The image associated with this post was taken by Flickr user Caveman92223. It was used under user Creative Commonslicense.
L.A. Judge Clears Way For Pot Dispensary Crackdown
Source: www.newsjunkiepost.com
Date Of Publication: June 5, 2010
L.A. Judge Clears Way For Pot Dispensary Crackdown
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Friday morning turned down a bid by medical marijuana patients and advocates to block the city’s new ordinance which regulates dispensaries from taking effect on Monday.
Twelve patients had sued the city, asking the judge to issue a temporary restraining order preventing Los Angeles from enforcing the ordinance, which is expected to result in the closure of more than 400 marijuana dispensaries, reports Victoria Kim at the Los Angeles Times.
The judge denied a flurry of 19 last-minute requests for restraining orders filed in the past 10 days, reports Troy Anderson at the Los Angeles Daily News. Jane Usher, special assistant to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, said the city can now begin enforcing the ordinance.
“I think this is great news for the residents of the city,” Usher said. “We can begin to process some of the applicants for the more permanent and regulated operations and the rest of today’s dispensaries, which are essentially selling marijuana to all comers, will be asked to close.”
“In about six months, we’ll sort out how many true collectives we have in the city, whether that meets the needs of the patients and we’ll reevaluate at that time whether it’s necessary to place further restrictions or to open the doors more,” Usher said.
According to the patients, the law would unconstitutionally bar patients’ safe access to their medicine, which was legalized by California voters 14 years ago, in 1996.
Judge James Chalfant said that since more than 100 dispensaries will be allowed to remain open in Los Angeles, patients will continue to have access, giving him no reason to issue an emergency restraining order stopping the city from instituting the crackdown.
“If the city can ban all dispensaries, which it can, this is not an issue,” Judge Chalfant said.
Chalfant’s decision clears the way for the city to begin its crackdown next week.
The dispensaries question the City Council’s decision to shut down all shops except those which registered with the City Clerk by November 13, 2007, which allows 187 shops to legally operate despite a moratorium on new stores.
According to city officials, 137 pre-moratorium dispensaries are still open. Those shops will have six months to come into compliance with the ordinance, which bans dispensaries from locating near numerous “sensitive use” areas including schools, churches, parks, and residences.
Last month, the City Attorney’s Office sent warning letters to 439 dispensary operators and property owners, warning that violations of the ordinance are misdemeanors which could result in criminal charges and penalties of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Los Angeles attorney Eric Shevin said he expects most of the dispensaries to close over the coming month, with many of the AIDS, cancer and other patients who rely on them for their supply of medical marijuana will experience “real hardship and real suffering.”
“When you start taking medicine away from patients, those patients are going to rise up and I don’t think the court, the police or the city attorney can anticipate what an uprising they are going to see,” Shevin said.
“They are denying access to potentially 100,000 medical marijuana users from the city of Los Angeles.”